Dripping with the original spirit of punk and a relentless flood of socially, politically and consciously engaged ideas, French artist Goin is priming the charges and leaving creativity’s spark to light the fuse of a new humanist activism. Emancipation, liberation, rebellion and the punishing vagaries of power’s endless cycles of corruption run deep into his work as powerful aesthetics take shape under the conceptual hammer. Laced with a superbly black sense of humour and a forcefulness - a viceral energy that bursts off his pieces Goin’s work wreaks chaos onto order and snatches moments of lucid disorder out of the volatile forge of history’s spiral...
What did punk mean to you
First and foremost, punk for me represents freedom and subversion. It’s the crow that flies free through the air above all the socalled do-gooders who wish it dead. It’s the rat that we can’t wait to exterminate but that we forget we created. Born out of disorder as a response to the chaos of the 20th century, it’s a rebellion against all illegitimate authority, and could be seen as the Dada of music. The straw that broke the camel’s back, the spark that makes everything explode in your face when all you want is the security of sleeping quietly. The “No Future” of the punk era is now!
How much did the sense that ‘anyone can do it’ that was at the core of punk democratize art in all its forms
That’s definitely what I had in mind when I started to paint. And if I can do it, then everyone can do it! Imagine an exhibition where everyone could exhibit, with neither preconception nor moral and aesthetic limitation – well, such a place does exist and it’s the street. Punk, hip hop and graffiti are cultures that are built out of the idea that ‘anyone can do it’. They’re open, alive, free and expressive forms where everyone has a place and can bring their touch, their style, and their individuality to make a difference... Everyone is unique and so everyone can do it!
Is rebellion an end in itself or just a starting point
Rebellion should never be an end in itself. We do not rebel for the sake of rebellion, we rebel to reach a specific goal.The spirit of rebellion is an innate human instinct to fight against injustice and that which we disagree with and it marks both disobedience and a new dawn. Rebellion is driven by outrage and I invite everyone to find their own cause, their own source of justified fury - there are so many these days! Art is a rebellion, rebellion is an art.
What drew you to pop art
Punk and skating culture. It all began in 1994 - at the time I was playing guitar in a punk rock band. Fabien, the bassist drew our album covers, so I was naturally attracted to the visual elements as he put targeted, personal spins on popular icons used by the mainstream media who ‘manipulate the masses’ I started creating skateboards, tshirts and stickers for my own skate line, ‘Everyday’ that I had set up with my brother Nicolas. This ‘anti-design’ movement attracted me more and more as I tried to find a way of getting away from the classic ‘marketing’ techniques driving music groups and existing skate brands, and it was basically that step that led me to cutting my first stencil and headingout to paint it ’free’ in the street. I don’t do pop art, but even so, there’s no doubt that street art is heavily infused with it. Street art is the bastard child of pop art beholden to neither religion nor law – ‘sans foi ni loi‘ – lawless and infinitely freer and more open than any existing art form.
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